Internet Site Editors have changed; using old ways to produce beautiful works is like using a walkman and a separate cassette recorder to publish the hit tune, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."
“A task can be completed in many ways - it is what is sought from the sight that matters; where most things go unseen, hidden from view, making it easier and more acceptable to the creator and viewer.”
The goal and purpose of the assignment is to complete the assignment, turning in what is asked of them, but just like nature, creative works, choice, and skill are varied. With new technology, comes new ways of doing things. Naturally, a good tool is required and old methods are attempted and partially unsuccessful because they've been replaced by new tools, with better options. Read more about Dreamweaver, Wix, and audio file server problems brought about by software partnerships, requirements, subscriptions, and costs.
Can the assignment be completed and the skill proven?
Asking to use old code and demonstrate understanding, with new tools, is not the best learning or design approach. Trying to figure out viewer expectations, grading criteria, and swaying a person's belief system or ways of doing things is a challenge. People have different wants, needs, and approaches for the ways in which they complete their work. Some are visually stimulated, while others find more enjoyment in text or word based learning, writing, reading, and viewing. Some prefer song and dance, while others prefer reading thin pieces of paper to find answers to ancient works.
The end result and the process to produce the result is not the same; nor is the experience of one who lives in the high desert versus one who live next to the foggy beaches of Northern California. Both landscapes are beautiful, but different, just as Dreamweaver and Internet Site Creator, Wix, which was selected for this assignment because of its animation features, ease of use, and ability to create a free site (sight). Just as the experience of a Designer, Developer, or Engineer is different using text based tools to create informative and useful sites, demonstration of learning is different.
Motivation and purpose may also be different, where one is accustomed to using old tools and methods, and another uses visual based creative skills to complete the assignment, both spending time learning, doing, and creating a product or something viewable and readable. For one, the purpose might be to just complete the task and show proof of work or understanding - an old learning and grading method used by Math professors, adopted by the Technology discipline. Just like mathematics, there is more than one way to get to the end result or answer, but Internet Design is not a numerical formula that creates an answer. It, just like the lands and climate across multiple continents, have advanced in their gentleness and rage, providing more visually based formulas and options to achieve the grade or complete the assignment.
Use Whatever Tools and Methods Produce Your Best Work
Following others and learning old techniques, or using new technologies to show increased ease of old code and features is healthy, but not if the end result produces severe discomfort, anger, distrust, and dysfunctional or poor work. Some grade based upon the means to get to a certain result or place, while others grade based upon creativity, a completed task, uniqueness, value, and time spent. The good news is: Code is no longer required to create beautiful sites, but management of such code and feature is the critical factor. There are trade offs in the business because of cost, maintenance, functionality, and feature. Animation is costly and so are software systems that are used to create them.
Creativity and learning or 'relearning' new and old systems takes time. For some, the skill is intuitive, and fast. For others, they choose to take another route to demonstration, using words, numbers, and coding. The task is design, not programming, but it does have some code to get text to look a certain way, when a mouse is pointed to it and the value of the code or learning belongs to the learner and user of the software. Old ways required hidden code, while new ways and tools offer built in features that save time and achieve the same result. Some tools are free and easy, others are expensive and complicated.
The weather is free, but not easy and the systems that manage the weather are not free. Weather reporters read from a teleprompter, while weather engineers, and systems engineers use advanced tools to track patterns, report numbers, or creatively spread the news in preparedness for emergency or disaster. People in safe regions, where the weather is not often considered a threat, enjoy regular reporting of the changing tides, predictable rain, and outcomes associated with weather changes, such as traffic, and accidents, with people across the continent able to see the differences in weathers from one coast to the next. For some, once they learn and memorize the code, they can reuse it and put it on their resume. Advanced developers like to evaluate software advancement in the marketplace for features, functionality, ease of implementation, use, and how to select the best most cost effective, easy to use tool to create stunning works.
The tools used to create 'sites' or 'sights' are not often known by the viewer, just as the creator of the Tornado or Hurricane is not often known by its viewers or those who suffer through it. Internet Design does not cause suffering, but being forced to go back to old methods and tools, seeing major changes in software in the wrong direction, causes about as much anger as a severe Tornado about to Arkansas or a Hurricane about to hit the Florida Coast, but no one really tunes in to see its destruction, just like no one seeks to destroy the destroyer who caused the Technology disaster called "Cloud Computing.'
This article will not contain a software evaluation of Adobe Dreamweaver's Cloud based HTML and media software, but it was tested and considered for use, uninstalled, and will not be reused, purchased for the class, or other classes due to its high cost, weight, and limited ability.